My Blog in Its Third Month

It’s been just a little over two and a half months since I’ve begun this blog. There has been no shortage of things to write about, and doubtless that will always be the case. Doing this has been, for me, more of a joyful exercise than I ever would have imagined. Not only has it helped with my writing, but the act of sitting down and sorting my thoughts out to where they make sense on a blog entry has helped me to be prioritize areas of my life better, as well as to look different sides of issues before I render opinions. And even with opinions that I disagree with, I’ve found that there is value to those as well.

I deeply appreciate the enormous variety of blogs out there and the people who make the effort necessary to maintain them. Some blogs, which share the same ideologies, seem to band together in their own circles, promoting and feeding off each other. There are things in the blogosphere called “carnivals”, whereby some parties review blog articles from approved sources that support a particular ideology, select the ones that most meet with their approval and interest (keeping within that ideology’s parameters, of course), and publish them as a separate blogging event, tailor-made for the ideology-in-question. Don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing at all inappropriate for people to link to (and be linked by) others who have the same point of view. But the problem is that I don’t think any of us really have the exact same positions on issues and priorities, and some of us, as bloggers, may feel compelled to an extent to customize our expressed opinions so that whoever it is judging our works for acceptance into a particular ideology’s carnivals or family of blogs won’t think that we’re too “impure” in our opinions. Speaking from my own experience, I would probably be excluded from just about all of these types of “blog-conglomeration societies” because I have varying views on different issues that don’t fit neatly into someone else’s shoebox. Besides, my blog is deliberately eclectic in nature. And frankly, I don’t know why anyone would just want to read stuff that parrots his or her own beliefs, anyway. When I surf around blogs, I like to read about all sorts of different takes on things. To borrow Rush Limbaugh’s terminology, I don’t need to be a blog “ditto-head”! Now many “carnivals” out there (such as the History Carnival or Mathematics Carnival) are oriented to certain interests rather than ideologies. And likewise, I have certain interests and show them on my featured blog links. But I also know that my pages will never pass an ideological litmus test for inclusion in someone else’s club, which means that it probably will be read by fewer people. That’s too bad, since I have something to say, too. And the consolidation of blogs on the basis of ideology gives a false sense that if a large bloc of blogs conveys a particular outlook, then that outlook is somehow more real or true. The counterargument could be made, though, that putting blogs together that share an ideology performs the useful function of making that ideology easier for anyone, regardless of their viewpoint, to explore.

So, I don’t have any particular ideological agenda with this blog, specific issues and opinions I express from time to time notwithstanding. But if you, my reader, enjoy reading it, whether you agree or disagree, then that’s good enough for me!